The Day the Earth Stood Still

Sunday night -- a cold night here in Oregon, in the 20s, with some ice on the roads, which this state takes as a sign to completely shut down but which back in New Hampshire would have been a sign of encroaching spring -- I went to the local theatre here in St Helens and watched The Day the Earth Stood Still with about six other people. The Columbia Theatre is one of those great old-fashioned theatres that everyone loves and which no one attends, and you wonder how they stay open, especially considering that the Boise paper mill here in St Helens, which employs about 10% of the town, is closing in a month.

Spoilers ahead.

I liked this movie alot, and if you like SciFi movies you probably will too. The first 20-30 minutes presented the most realistic depiction of an alien invasion of Earth that I have ever seen on film. As was the depiction of a "gray goo" of microbots (not nanobots) that swarmed around ready to cleanse the Earth of anything relating to humans.

The rest of the movie wasn't bad. It wrapped up a little too easily, with Klattu seemingly becoming convinced of humanity's potential by a sappy hug in a cemetary. But who sees a SciFi film for anything like that? The depictions were cool. Gort was a bit old-fashioned, just with a twist.

Check it out, preferably on a cold, icy night with six other people in the theatre.